The Organizing Department harnessed workers’ growing hunger for union representation over the past few years, bringing the USW’s power to thousands of new members in our core sectors and emerging industries while building the framework for still more growth.
Our wins empowered workers—often for the first time in their lives—to fight for family-sustaining wages, quality health care, safer working conditions, secure retirements, equitable treatment and a voice on the job.
These victories transcended the shop floor. Organizing successes lift up entire communities because union workers not only raise pay for non-union peers but provide the support that sustains small businesses, schools and public services.
Just as important, our new members sent the message that workers not only want unions but will overcome corporate intimidation, anti-worker legislation, regional hostility and other barriers to achieve a seat at the table.
new members sent the message that workers not only want unions but will overcome corporate intimidation.
Doubling Down on Core Sectors
About 1,500 workers at the Blue Bird electric bus company in Fort Valley, Ga., made headlines nationwide when they joined the USW in September 2023.
The company resisted them. The South’s anti-union history defied them. But they stood strong together, ultimately winning a first contract that established a joint health and safety committee, delivered raises of up to 40 percent and set a powerful example for other workers in Georgia and neighboring states.
To achieve this victory, we relied on some of the 160 USW members trained as volunteer organizers under a worker-to-worker unionizing initiative pioneered by late International President Tom Conway.
Members of USW Local 572 from the Graphic Packaging site in Macon, Ga., met with workers from Blue Bird. They spoke with them about the benefits of the union and the power of collective action. They answered questions and addressed concerns.
These relationships helped to build solidarity and empower workers at the bus company, resulting in the landslide vote for the union.
The same peer-to-peer approach helped to organize two more Bobcat plants in as many years.
At the time of the last convention, workers at only one of Bobcat’s five U.S. facilities—the Gwinner, N.D., location—enjoyed USW representation.
But with Local 560 members from Gwinner serving as volunteer organizers, we welcomed 700 workers at Bobcat’s Bismarck, N.D., location into the USW in September 2022. We followed that up by unionizing 185 more workers at the company’s Rogers, Minn., plant in March 2023.
Other successes included organizing 500 workers at Ardagh Glass in New Jersey—deepening our density within the glass sector and the company itself—while also welcoming hundreds of workers from Southwest Gas in California and Diversified Gas & Oil in West Virginia.
As we increased our reach among manufacturing workers, the Organizing Department also worked to expand the USW’s footprint as the biggest mining union in North America.
Northshore Mining was the only non-union mine on Northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. But the USW’s neutrality and card check agreement with the owner, Cleveland-Cliffs, provided the workers there with a clear path to union membership.
Central to this union drive were members of Locals 6860 and 2705 who work at other Cliffs mines on the Iron Range as well as members of Local 9561 who work at a Cliffs plant in Ohio. They executed a winning plan in summer 2023 that secured signed cards from a majority of Northshore workers in mere days.
These 415 new members of District 11 immediately got to work at the bargaining table, achieving their first contract with significant gains within months. This win helps all miners in the Iron Range bargain better contracts because there are no longer non-union mines to depress wages.
Building Geographic Density
Our work over the past few years meant increasing density not only among our traditional employers and sectors but in geographic areas where we already have a strong presence but see the opportunity to make an even greater impact.
We made an extensive study of the USW’s 60-plus-year history in Puerto Rico, for example, and considered how to move forward.
We met with members to discuss how their Steelworker and Puerto Rican identities overlap. Our District 4 and International leadership studied Puerto Rico’s current economic situation and potential growth areas.
With much of this work already in place, we stood ready to help when workers affected by privatization in Puerto Rico’s power industry approached us about unionizing.
Nearly 500 workers at Genera PR, the company awarded a government contract for power generation, won their union election in July 2024. As our biggest new unit on the archipelago in many years, they give USW members a louder voice in Puerto Rico and encourage other workers to unionize with us.
Growing Non-Traditional Sectors
Adding to the USW’s string of wins at cultural institutions in recent years, workers at the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site in Philadelphia voted to join the USW in 2023.
Workers at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and at The Frick Pittsburgh, a museum located on the estate of notorious Gilded Age union-buster Henry Clay Frick, joined us a year later.
Meanwhile, our initial organizing success at the University of Pittsburgh helped us to unionize still more workers there.
More than 3,000 Pitt faculty members joined the USW in 2021. Three years later, they inked their first contract—the best faculty contract in the United States, bar none.
Inspired by the faculty’s extraordinary gains, about 6,300 university staff and 2,100 graduate workers also voted overwhelmingly to unionize with the USW in 2024.
Because Pitt is one of the area’s biggest employers, a unionized work force across all bargaining units will help increase overall regional wages while solidifying USW members’ voices at the state level.
Supporting Health Care Workers
Workers at the Squirrel Hill Health Center in Pittsburgh also voted for the USW in fall 2024, further increasing our density within the health care sector and in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Overall, the USW represents about 50,000 health care workers.
The lessons of the pandemic, low pay and hazardous working conditions continue to fuel health care workers’ demand for unions nationwide. Workers at Pediatric Specialty Care Medical Day in Central Pennsylvania and at UP Health System-Marquette in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula also voted for USW representation last year, the key to building better environments for themselves and their patients.
Strategically Organizing in the Clean Economy
Our economy will change in significant ways in the coming years, with an emphasis on transitioning to renewable energies and batteries.
This also means a change in the kinds and quality of jobs available to workers.
The transition to a clean economy will only be successful if the new jobs are secure, safe, and family-sustaining, and the Organizing Department is building out a multi-pronged strategy to ensure these new jobs measure up.
This means leveraging organizing opportunities across supply chains, from miners who produce the minerals and materials needed to make a battery, to workers making the parts that go into a solar panel or a wind turbine, to those responsible for the final manufacture of products that run on renewable energy.
Our strategy also includes looking at where we invest our resources. Although many clean-economy manufacturers set up shop in the South to exploit lower union density and wages, the victory at Blue Bird highlighted the potential for organizing in this part of the country.
Winning New Members
Organizing is an ongoing process in a workplace, not a one-time victory.
That’s especially true in states with so-called “right-to-work” (RTW) laws that force unions to represent workers in a bargaining unit regardless of whether they become members or pay so much as a nickel for representation.
Our department helps locals and districts with initiatives aimed at signing up new members from among holdouts and new hires—a process that’s crucial to gain power going into contract negotiations in RTW states.
Michigan’s repeal of its onerous RTW laws in February 2023—a victory that occurred after years of union activism—presented us with a different kind of challenge. The Organizing Department met with District 1 locals to help them reinstate union security language and enroll new members, boosting the USW’s power in workplaces and sectors statewide.
Raising the Bar for All
An organizing victory lifts all working people.
The greater the number of union members, the louder labor’s voice when advocating for pro-worker policies and laws at the federal, state and local levels.
A growing membership also means more support for our Strike and Defense Fund, ensuring a robust safety net for those forced onto the picket line because of unfair labor practices.
While fighting for better pay—including wage parity for women, workers of color and those with disabilities—the union also helps members to develop the skills needed to become better communicators, leaders and strategists.
But unions drive even broader prosperity. Solidarity forged in the workplace spills over into the community, driving equity and opportunity outside the plant gate.
Our locals organize charitable events and make philanthropic donations. They advocate for community improvements. Their high-quality jobs and wages fuel local economies.
We realize that our members make a significant investment in organizing, and we take that investment seriously.
The Organizing Department will continue to bring unorganized workers together to add to our union’s collective strength in strategic ways. We look forward to working with as many members and locals as possible to bring more workers the life-changing gains that come with USW membership.